Children conceived using IVF have greater risk of heart defects, new study shows

A study recently published by the European Heart Journal suggests that children conceived using in vitro fertilization (IVF) have an increased risk of congenital heart defects. As reported by The New York Times, researchers tracked the health of children born through IVF in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Finland between 1985 and 2014. In examining the medical records of over seven million Nordic children, they discovered evidence that IVF poses a risk to the children’s heart health.

The study, entitled “Congenital heart defects in children born after assisted reproductive technology: a CoNARTaS study,” began with the premise that “Children born after assisted reproductive technology (ART) have worse perinatal outcomes compared with spontaneously conceived children.” The researchers went on to investigate whether children conceived through IVF have a higher risk of congenital heart defects, defined in the study as “structural anomalies of the heart and intrathoracic vessels during pregnancy and birth,” as compared with children who were conceived naturally.

Researchers cross-linked data from national ART registries, medical birth registries (MBRs), national patient registries (NPRs), cause of death registries, and birth registries from the four countries, examining data of all the countries’ live-born children, and the birth years of the children generally spanned from 1984-2015.

Out of the 7,747,637 children studied, 171,735 were conceived with ART. Researchers studied the health outcomes of children conceived with ART who were implanted in the womb after being frozen at the embryo stage, as well as children who were implanted in the womb without previously having been frozen. No link was found between congenital heart defects and the fact that some of the children conceived with IVF were frozen as embryos.

Researchers looked at the data of children who were diagnosed with congenital heart defects (CHDs) at birth and up to one year of age, rating the severity of the defects and taking into account maternal age and health. They found that congenital heart defects are more prevalent among babies conceived with IVF than babies conceived naturally or spontaneously–1.84% of children conceived with ART had CHDs while 1.15% of children conceived naturally had CHDs.

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The study notes that children conceived with IVF are more likely to be born prematurely, which is one reason why these babies are more likely to suffer from heart defects early in life.

According to the study, the risk of congenital heart defects is greater for multiple babies conceived, implanted, and gestated together in a woman’s womb after IVF. This points to one of the fundamental issues with IVF–that the process works by implanting multiple children at the embryo stage at one time. As the study shows, the twins, triplets, and sometimes even greater numbers of children conceived via IVF and gestated together in the womb suffer major health complications, including a greater risk of spontaneous or intentional death, because of IVF.

The number of multiples conceived with ART who developed CHDs is nearly double the number of singletons who were conceived with ART. As seen in Table 4, “Major CHDs were detected among 1.62% (2,059)” of singletons who were conceived with assisted reproductive technology. As seen in Table 4, 2.47% (1,100) multiples conceived with IVF suffered major CHDs, and 0.44% (195) multiples conceived with IVF suffered severe CHDs.

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